Democracy Unit Overview

Term 3


Intro idea: YouTube animation

Week 7: Rights of a child:
  • Look at the UN document (photo essay part I & photo essay part II) & role of the government.
  • Possibly write their own version. Online resource
  • Compare electronic version with print versions (add titles here from school library)
  • Use rights of a child (plain language version) to sort/classify into categories - eg. education, freedom, health, security.

Week 8: Structure of the government: local, state, federal - use digital resources at Parliamentary Education Office (PEO).

Week 9 & 10: Export & import with a focus on the local farming community farming.
  • Tie into the centenary celebrations. The year 6 focus is how farming has changed over the years due to governmental policies on tobacco etc and how this has affected the local community.
  • Timeline (use interactive tool at readwritethink.org)
  • Interviews of local ministers (Skype)
  • Farmer visit to school
  • Some form of art using tobacco leaves and a display of produce.

Term 4

Week 1: Centenary celebrations

Week 2: Australian democracy:
  • Definition & history.
  • Look at the rights & responsibilities of citizens e.g. voting (tie into voting process for leadership positions in 2010). - use digital resources at Parliamentary Education Office (PEO). Take a vote - Democracy - Learning Federation animation about school leadership voting

Week 3: Political parties
  • Look at Australia in comparison to other countries in terms of human rights etc (there are some good websites for this that rate countries in terms of freedom of press etc). World Audit

Week 4: Campaign speeches for school leadership positions in 2010. Speeches (mime as practise). Use digital resources & rubrics for public speech writing:

Week 5: Citizenship – our responsibilities and reflection on what we now know.

Other:
Australian Dictionary of Biography
  • Parliamentary role play - Parliamentary Education Office Website Use as literacy centre activity
  • View 'Question Time' on ABC (insert time). Use as listening activity/write written response?
  • Voting for school leaders using vote property on myclasses - Emma to speak with Christine Masters

Writing:
  • Biography
  • Persuasive formal speech - for leadership campaign
  • Interview (local farmer etc.)

Speaking:
  • Formal speech (leadership)
  • Interview
  • Role play

Listening:

Other ideas:
Piclits - inspired picture writing
(fun with words/revision of grammar- revision of similes etc) Click on 'Learn it' to see possible uses/applications - could be and I.T or lap top session?
Wordle

Planning process

1. Important & enduring concepts:
o Democracy
o Voting process
o Citizenship – rights & responsibilities

2. Why do they matter?
o Democracy – freedom of speech, equal rights and opportunities
o So they understand the process for voting for school leadership positions
o Become good future citizens

3. Who cares about these topics?
o Everyone

4. Real life contexts:
o Interdisciplinary connections & other subjects incorporated:
~ SOSE
~ SEL
~ Art
~ Literacy
~ Maths

5. Blooms
o Knowledge: history, key figures, roles, responsibilities
o Comprehension: how does this affect us?
o Application: think about leadership in school & voting for leaders
o Analysis: look at different figures in history & compare Australia to other countries in terms of democracy
o Synthesis: creating speeches & campaigns
o Evaluation: what could have been done differently e.g. treatment of Aboriginal people and what do we to do as future citizens?

6. Authentic ways to engage in the project:
o Interviews using Skype (local ministers etc)
o Farm visits: interview with flip cams
o Campaign websites for leadership voting: myclasses pages
o Digital research e.g. http://www.worldaudit.org/democracy.htm
o Speech writing & campaigning
o Debates
o Timeline: digital

7. What will interest the students?
o Primarily: camp
o Voting & campaigning for leadership
o Farm visits

8. Learning dispositions:
o Responsible decision makers (SEL)
o Social Awareness (SEL)
o Investigators (SOSE)
o Communicators (SOSE)
o Reflectors (SOSE)
o Participators (SOSE)